State considers raising dropout age

Thursday

Jan 31, 2008 at 2:00 AM

By David Kibbe Ottaway News Service

A proposal to raise the high school dropout age from 16 to 18 years old is headed toward a debate at the Statehouse, but even some supporters say the state should move slowly before making such a dramatic change.

The Legislature’s Joint Committee on Education gave a favorable recommendation this month to a bill filed by Rep. John F. Quinn, D-Dartmouth, and Stephen R. Canessa, D-New Bedford, to raise the age to 18.

However, the Education Committee attached the bill to a seemingly contradictory proposal to establish a study commission on whether to raise the dropout age. The study commission also got favorable approval. Rep. Patricia A. Haddad, D-Somerset, the House chair of the committee, supports raising the compulsory school age. However, she favors first forming a commission, saying the state needs to study the causes of the dropout rate, and the effect on schools if the age is raised.

Then there is the question of how much it will cost.

“I do think it should be raised,” Haddad said. “The problem is it is very hard to just do it overnight.”

She said forcing students to stay in school, without addressing why they are not succeeding, would not help them make progress. Haddad said the solutions could be different for each student.

“In order to bring kids back, we really need to make sure that we are providing alternative programs,” she said. The dropout legislation has been sent to the Senate Ways and Means Committee, and it could appear on the Senate floor for debate before the end of the session.

“Getting a dropout bill out of the Education Committee is a big step in the process,” Quinn said.

Gov. Deval Patrick, who is proposing a wide overhaul of the education bureaucracy, supports raising the dropout age to 18. He told a gathering of educators in Worcester last March that “permitting young kids to drop out at 16 is another example of an antiquated education policy.”

The state’s annual dropout rate for the 2005-2006 school year was 3.3 percent, down from 3.9 percent the prior school year. New Bedford High School cut its rate from 9.4 percent to 6 percent, but it remains a serious issue for educators. A sampling on the Cape showed Barnstable had a dropout rate of 5.2 percent, Bourne, 4.3 percent, Harwich, 3.4 percent, and Dennis-Yarmouth, 3.1 percent. Prior proposals to raise the age from 16 to 18 have failed to gain traction in the state Legislature.

Quinn and Canessa are trying a new twist. They are proposing to phase in the increase to 18 until it is required in every school in the state by 2014. In the meantime, the state would start pilot programs at schools that have particularly high dropout rates. The dropout age would be raised more quickly in those schools, and intervention programs would be developed before students decide to drop out. The concept is supported by the SouthCoast Education Compact, a group of business leaders and educators from an area of Southeastern Massachusetts with 360,000 residents and high dropout rates.

Freetown-Lakeville Superintendent Stephen Furtado testified in favor of the Quinn-Canessa bill at a Statehouse hearing last May. The committee heard testimony on 20 bills to raise the dropout age or create programs to reduce the dropout rate. They included a proposal from Rep. Antonio F.D. Cabral, D-New Bedford, to raise the age. Cabral, Sen. Mark C.W. Montigny, D-New Bedford, and Rep. Robert M. Koczera, D-New Bedford, are also among the lawmakers who have signed onto the Quinn-Canessa bill.

The bill was attached to one sponsored by Sen. Edward M. Augustus Jr., D-Worcester, that would study both dropout reporting by schools and intervention programs. The commission would be required to make recommendations to the state Legislature. Canessa called the Education Committee’s approval of the bill “good news.”

“We’re happy to hear there is some progress being made in moving forward,” Canessa said. “Now, the big fight and the big push will head over to the Senate…At the end of the day, the main objective is that we pass a bill that is going to have a positive impact on the dropout issue for our entire state, but particularly for Southeastern Mass.”

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